


Summer's End

by pasiphile



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-30
Updated: 2015-12-30
Packaged: 2018-05-10 12:39:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5585701
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pasiphile/pseuds/pasiphile
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He comes back twenty minutes after midnight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer's End

He comes back twenty minutes after midnight.

You’ve been waiting for hours in the darkened living room, too scared to switch on the lights, to even move, because he told you to wait here and if you don’t… A child’s superstition, maybe, but not something you can fight, not now.

And then he’s there, outlined against the light of the hallway, like a divine apparition.

His eyes are dark.

You thank the god you don’t believe in and get up, pull him in, kiss him hungrily. His skin feels chilled, and he tastes like rain, like dust, like blood, and it’s weird but you don’t give a shit because he’s _here_.

And only now you realise how much you believed you’d never feel this again.

You pull away. “What happ- ”

He interrupts you with a hard kiss and yeah, okay, message received. You close your eyes, trying to cast off every doom scenario you’ve thought up in the last few hours, every sickening fear that’s been haunting your dreams for – for weeks, months. And surprisingly, it’s not hard. Not when you’ve got him pressed against you, him on tiptoes to reach you, the muscles in his neck straining with his need to get close.

You push him against the wall and slide your hand up his neck. The back of his head feels wet, but when you pull back your palm is dry. You blink, confused. “Are you – ”

He yanks you down and kisses you again. His tongue pushes in and he tastes coppery – still the blood, but there’s no wound you can see or feel. Is he…

Doesn’t matter.

“Come on,” you say. You grab his hand and pull him to the bedroom, then push him down on the bed and straddle him.

You pull off your shirt with rough urgency. Jim doesn’t join in. He’s just lying back, staring at you with something like hunger, a focus that’s intense even by his standards.

You bend down and kiss him. His hands come up to rest on your waist. There’s something strange about his touch, something oddly sharp, a bit like that one day he’d spent working in his makeshift lab and he’d been full of static electricity afterwards, each touch – literally – setting off sparks.

“Do you need – ” you try again, but his hand flies up to cover your mouth. You pull back instinctively from the touch; it’s like kissing ice cubes.

You pull his jacket open, start unbuttoning his shirt. The lack of light is playing tricks with your sight, making him seem pale as snow. Of course, he’s never been exactly what you’d call dark-skinned, but right now he looks – devoid of all colour. Desaturated. Like a drained corpse.

He sits up and you push his shirt down his arms. He reaches out immediately, embracing your shoulders and pulling you flush against him, chest to chest.

He’s fucking freezing.

You grab his waist and roll over, putting him on top. He leans his hands on your chest but stays like that, not taking initiative, and it’s unnerving. Jim has always been bossy in bed. This – passivity, it’s not like him.

What the fuck _happened_?

On impulse, you open his belt and pull the flies down and push your hand down his pants.

Nothing.

You look up, almost dreading what you’re going to see. But it’s just Jim, watching you, the heat of his eyes more than making up for the coldness of his skin. You lick your lips, try to think of something to say, the right question to ask.

A loud bang makes you jolt. A moment later a loud rumble runs through the sky, followed by the hard patter of rain against the window.

A storm.

Jim pulls your hand away, then pushes against your shoulder. You go down on your back, hands at his hips, fighting panic like you have for the entire fucking night but he’s here, he’s safe, shouldn’t that be enough?

But it's not. ‘Cause sure, there have been times Jim isn’t up for sex but they’re rare, few and far between, and mostly just because he’s tired. He doesn’t look tired now. Or – or maybe he does, it’s weird, it’s like his expression is an entirely new one. Like there’s a different person on top of you, simply wearing Jim’s skin.

But then he leans down and kisses you and yeah, no, that’s Jim.

He works your jeans open and slides his hand down over your stomach to your cock. You’re already half-hard but Jim’s fingers are still fucking _freezing_ , and the contrast of it, the bliss of touch and the bite of the cold –

You groan. Jim closes his eyes and kisses you again, almost chaste.

The clatter of the rain is still continuing, interspersed with the occasional flash of light and rumble of thunder. In other circumstances it would be cosy, being here inside in the warmth while outside a fucking torrent tears open the skies, but now? With the dark and strange flickering shadows, with Jim somehow suffering from a bad case of hypothermia, with the aftermath of terror still bitter in your throat?

It’s still intimate, though. Private.

Jim tilts his head and kisses deeper, his hand still on your cock, doing nothing but squeezing gently.

He tastes of hoarfrost, cold and brittle and bitter.

You make a small needy sound, grab his neck. Once again it feels like his hair is still wet, but your hand comes back dry. Must be your exhaustion, the adrenaline and stress and relief fucking up your senses. Maybe the coldness of his skin is just a neural misfire on your part too.

Jim makes his way down, kissing your neck. He scrapes his teeth gently over your jugular, then bites down hard. You curse, jolt beneath him, pull at his hair and something gives – fuck, did you pull out his hair?

No, nothing. But why did it feel like there had been a lock of hair, pulled loose? And something else, something sharp, like a shard of glass but harder…

Jim shifts, changes position. His hands are on your sides, holding you, unusually careful. You push up onto your elbows to watch him as he goes down, pressing cool kisses on your midriff, stomach, thighs…

Then the tip of his tongue touches your cock and you curse, because it sure as hell doesn’t feel like a relatively simple touch. More like he reached down beneath your skin and stuck his hands straight down your nerves and then _twisted_.

He slides his lips over your cock, taking you deep. You bite your lip, fall back against the mattress. His nails scratch down your chest, leaving behind warm comforting pain, something that feels blessedly real and familiar, at last, because all this, it’s –

You sit up again, grab his shoulder and pull him up. He lets you, without any sign of protest, another thing that’s out of character.

For a moment he just sits there, knees pressing into your hips, his hand resting almost hesitantly on your chest. As if he’s waiting for something. And his _eyes_ …

You pull him into another kiss. He scoots up and pushes against you until you’re half-lying half-sitting against the pillows, but he’s still wearing his trousers and you’ve got this overwhelming drive to _feel_ , so you stop him and pull at his waistband. He wriggles out of his trousers and pants – thank fuck – and you help pull them over his feet, throw them out of the way.

And he’s naked. Lightning flashes outside, briefly illuminating the darkened room, Jim’s black eyes, the shadows between his ribs and next to his hipbones.

You lift your hips and tug your jeans down. He pulls them away, and even pauses to get your socks off. Your toes curl at the touch of his fingers, even though – or maybe because – he’s being very gentle.

He goes down again, almost lying on top of you. Chest to chest, thigh to thigh. You can even feel his cock against your hip but he’s still flaccid, no sign of interest. You reach down but he stops you, catching your wrist and gently leading your hand back to his waist.

He presses his lips against yours. His hand runs down your chest, slow, pausing over your heart before going lower. You throw your arms around his shoulders, bury your face in the crook of his neck, shiver as he roughly bites the side of your throat.

He’s alive. He’s alive and safe and well, he’s alive he’s alive alive alive –

His hand grabs your cock. You hiss and trash against the sheets, and he takes your chin, tips your head back up, makes you look at him.

Bottomless eyes. It’s a fucking cliché but that’s what it looks like, like there’s something gaping behind his irises, something dark and old and terrible.

He pulls you into a kiss, his hand on your jaw, your neck. He’s jerking you off slowly and you’re quivering with how much you want him. He bites your lip.

You moan, on the edge. Your hand goes up to cradle the back of his skull and again you feel that strange wetness, the sensation of loose hair and hard shards and something soft, springy. His mouth tastes of blood even though he’s kissing you carefully and the air smells of dust and cordite and wet gravel.

You tear away, choke out his name, right on the brink of coming. His eyes are locked on you and you can’t look away, can’t blink, trapped and pinned and drowning, slipping –

Lightning flashes.

“ _Seb_ ,” Jim breathes.

You come.

***

You wake up to an empty bed. That isn’t unusual.

The sheets on Jim’s side are undisturbed. That _is_.

You touch your neck, your mouth, which should be marked, hurting. Sore. But there’s nothing. No red lines on your chest. No imprints of teeth over your jugular.

No lingering taste of him on your tongue.

You get up and go over to the window, which is still wet. You open it and run your fingers over the outside of it, let the raindrops leak down your hand. Then you lean out, breathe in the cold air.

The storm has stopped.

There’s noise downstairs. You put on your clothes and go down to the ground floor. There are men there, your employees, dragging in a heavy body bag.

“Shot last evening,” one of them says, staring at you as if he’s waiting for you to speak.

You don’t.

The guy pulls down the zip, then turns away, leaves, taking the others with them. The door falls closed, leaving you alone with –

You force your eyes down.

He looks pale. White, desaturated.

Like a drained corpse.

You kneel down, reach out and carefully turn his head. The back of his skull is a mass of blood, shards of bone, bare brain matter.

Your hand comes back wet.

 

**Author's Note:**

> ...sorry?
> 
> I swear this is based on either a (Arthurian) legend or an urban myth, but I've not been able to find the source. The title, meanwhile, refers to a loose translation of the Irish pagan feast Samhain, when the borders between the living and the dead were believed to be thinner than the rest of the year.


End file.
